“To search for enlightenment or nirvana beyond this mind is impossible.” – Bodhidharma

This quote reminds me of one of my first posts and favorite stories that illustrates there is no place that God is not. Searching for God outside of ourselves never works because we are the common element no matter where we go.

This all seems easier said than done, but it’s really as simple as we make it. When your mind starts wandering back to the past, your thoughts alone can create a physical pain response…or its opposite when you access happy memories. Similarly, thoughts about the future can cause anxiety if we are worried about something…or a flutter of excitement if we are expecting something positive. Again this is all as a result of our thoughts.

It is for this reason that we must choose and monitor our thoughts carefully.

If you feel a pull to shift your thoughts to the past, immediately correct it by focusing on the moment at hand. Perhaps you needed to access a previous lesson to help you with a current problem, but that does not mean that you need to stay in that past moment. The key is to get back to the present moment and deal with what’s directly at hand.

A similar shift back to the present must be done if we wander into the future as well. While it can be great to bask in the joy of future expected happiness, the problem is that it robs us of enjoying the present. Worrying is also a direct result of creating thoughts about the future that may never happen (please also view another previous post which addresses this: Why you should not worry). If we focus on the present moment, we are able to focus on what we need to do now to have the future we want.

There is always only one thing we can do at a time. As we live more in the present, spirit guides us to do the one thing we need to do at a given moment to be free from worry and to live in joy.